Caveat: Psychogeographie et l’art de la dérive

I was listening to Warren Olney's (sp?) "Which Way L.A." radio program last night, and he had as a guest a man named Will Self who is a practitioner of Guy Debord's psychogeography – a 50's situationist pseudo-artistic movement that endeavored to move around cities in unexpected ways, thus  "reading" urban landscapes  in some way via the subconscious.  Or something like that.  But I realized that I may actually be a long-term  psychogeographer, given my love of wandering about urban spaces without plan, map or program. 

Will Self had just spent the day before walking in a straight line from LAX to Watts – about 11 miles, and something very much like what I would do – indeed, more than once while living in LA I would take long undirected and notably untouristic walks, once walking from Long Beach to San Pedro, for example.  And just recently I've taken some rather random jaunts around Seoul, as well as last Saturday's long hike from Imjingang to Munsan-eup.

It's a rather high-falutin'-sounding term, though.  I like better Debord's concept of 'dérive' – "drift."  This suits me just fine.  I think I'll pursue it.

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